June 2019 , according to Forbes. Electronic dance music—or
EDM, as the genre is known—has become a multibillion-
dollar global industry, with origins in 1980 s Chicago, where
DJs started adding more mechanical beats and deeper bass
lines to dance tracks. House music was born, and it caught re
in the city’s underground club culture, where, like the DJs, the
patrons were predominantly gay and black.
A few years later, 12 - inch vinyl house-music discs found
their way from Chicago to the hedonistic shores of Ibiza, where
DJs added their own beats, remixing the sound into “Balearic
house,” to the delight of the Ecstasy-popping bohemians who
lled the then simple beach shacks to dance. New variations
on dance music were then alchemized at the coolest clubs in
London, Berlin, and other European capitals; eventually, EDM
made its way to those mega-clubs in Las Vegas, which began
oering multimillion-dollar residencies to star DJs, raising the
industry compensation scale exponentially. Along the way,
DJs became producers, songwriters, and performers.
Given how big the business has become, can these star DJs
keep their cool factor? Going by the group on these pages shot
by photographer Hassan Hajjaj, the answer is afirmative.
Their styles, and routes to success, vary enormously, however.
Seemingly overnight and out of nowhere, Marshmello
catapulted to the top echelon in 2019 , ranking as the second
highest-paid DJ on Forbes’s list, with some $ 40 million in
compensation (behind only the Chainsmokers, with their
$ 46 million haul). Quite a feat for someone who’s never
shown his face in public. Rather, he encases it in a custom
$ 55 , 000 marshmallow-shaped nylon resin helmet (it has an
internal air-conditioning system and programmable LEDs).
Reportedly, Marshmello is a 27 - year-old Philadelphia native
named Chris Comstock, but his spokeswoman will reveal no
biographical information other than to say that “the project
began four years ago, when Marshmello began putting music
out on SoundCloud.” On the heels of his 2016 breakout album,
Joytime, he played the following year at Coachella, and his
releases, including collaborations with such artists as Selena
Gomez and Bastille (“Happier” dominated charts worldwide),
have clocked 2 billion–plus Spotify streams. He partnered with
Epic Games to perform the rst-ever concert inside Fortnite,
an event Rolling Stone called “revolutionary.”B
ORN IN RUSSIA and raised in Germany, Zedd, 30 , stud-
ied classical music before joining a German heavy metal
band. Since his 2011 remix of Lady Gaga’s “Born This
Way,” and his own debut album, Clarity, he has produced songs
for artists including Katy Perry and Shawn Mendes (the remix
of “Lost in Japan”). Now based in L.A., he has a residency with
the Hakkasan Group (OMNIA, Hakkasan, Wet Republic) in
Las Vegas and pulled in $ 17 million in that summer-to-summer
period. For Zedd (legal name: Anton Zaslavski), it’s all about the
spectacular shows he puts on. “I’ve been making music since I
was four or ve, so I’ve always seen myself as a musician rst
and foremost,” he maintains. “Whether I’m working on a new
song, album, or my live show, I always strive to make something
intelligent. When you come to one of my shows, it will feel more
like a well-rounded performance rather than a DJ set.”
By contrast, Jamie Jones, 39 , is considered a DJ’s DJ. After
growing up in Wales, he earned his irst Ibiza residency in
2004 but really got on the map in 2009 , when he began a resi-
dency at Ibiza’s DC 10. It was there that he launched his own
long-running party brand, Paradise, bringing a warmer, more
melodic side to techno. Now based in London, he produces
his Paradise parties everywhere from Miami to Moscow. The
private planes and ve-star hotels along the way are nice, he
says, but not as cool as just making music and being able to
pay your rent. This summer, he will relocate his Ibizan resi-
dency to Amnesia, another fabled venue.
As much an entrepreneur as an artist, Steve Aoki, 42 , rst
learned about business as a teenager, peeling onions at‘MUSIC HAS ALLOWED ME
TO COLLABORATE WITH
THE WORLD,’ SAYS STEVE AOKI.
‘ALL OF MY SHOWS HAVE
BEEN THE CONDUIT.’
82 VANITY FAIR